About Matt

A Lifelong Question

For more than thirty years, one question has shaped my practice:

How can I help this person become the healthiest version of themselves?

Every person who walks into the clinic has a story.

Sometimes it’s a story of pain.

Sometimes it’s stress, fatigue, digestive problems, or an illness that has gradually changed the way they live.

Often they’ve already tried many different approaches before coming to see me.

Over the years, I’ve learnt that no two people recover in exactly the same way.

Two people may have the same diagnosis.

The same pain.

The same scan.

Yet their bodies often need something quite different.

Rather than treating a condition alone, I try to understand how this particular person’s body has adapted to everything it has experienced.

Often the body isn’t simply broken.

It is adapting.

Protecting.

Compensating.

When we begin to understand those adaptations, change becomes easier.

Not because we force it.

Because we stop working against the body’s own intelligence.

 

Where It Began

Long before I discovered Chinese medicine, I loved spending time in nature and becoming absorbed in stories.

I grew up bushwalking around the northern beaches of Sydney. Being outdoors taught me that everything exists in relationship. The landscape changes with the seasons. Nothing stands alone.

At the same time, I spent countless hours reading books and watching films. I was fascinated by the stories people told and the way those stories shaped how they understood themselves.

I didn’t realise it then, but those two interests were quietly leading me towards Chinese medicine.

 

Discovering Chinese Medicine

I first encountered Chinese medicine during a Japanese Yoga workshop with Michael Wynne at West Head, Sydney.

Something about it immediately felt familiar.

Here was a way of understanding health that looked beyond isolated symptoms and instead explored relationships.

Between movement and stillness.

Breathing and emotion.

Lifestyle and environment.

Body and mind.

Everything belonged to everything else.

I continued studying with Michael in what could only be described as a very Daoist way.

Many workshops involved walking deep into the wilderness for seven to ten days, carrying little more than a backpack, a yoga mat, and enough macrobiotic food for the journey.

It was an unusual classroom.

But perhaps the perfect one.

Nature wasn’t simply the setting.

It became one of the teachers.

 

Learning to Listen

My first clinical work was through remedial massage, Shiatsu, yoga, moxa, and movement practices.

As people came for treatment, I found myself listening just as carefully to their stories as I did to their bodies.

Not simply the story of their symptoms.

The story of how those symptoms had become part of their lives.

How stress affected their breathing.

How grief settled into posture.

How pain changed movement.

How the body quietly adapted in an effort to keep going.

That curiosity eventually led me to study acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, allowing me to understand the body in greater depth.

Alongside this, I completed a Bachelor of Arts because I wanted to better understand narrative itself—how people make sense of their lives through the stories they tell.

Looking back, those two paths were never really separate.

Both taught me that healing begins with understanding.

 

My Approach

Chinese medicine has given me many ways of helping people.

Acupuncture.

Chinese herbal medicine.

Hands-on therapy.

Movement.

Breathing practices.

Each has its place.

But the techniques themselves are not the centre of my practice.

The centre is paying attention.

Listening carefully.

Observing without rushing to conclusions.

Trying to understand what the body is attempting to achieve before deciding how best to help it.

Every treatment is different because every person is different.

Rather than asking,

“What disease does this person have?”

I’m usually asking,

“What does this person need right now to become the healthiest version of themselves?”

That question continues to shape every treatment I give.

 

Beyond the Clinic

Teaching has become another important part of my work.

I teach weekly Qigong classes in Bellingen, where people learn to move with greater ease, breathe more naturally, and develop a quieter awareness of themselves.

I also founded Deep Well Learning, where I explore Chinese medicine, qigong, and the principles that sit beneath practice through online courses and writing.

Whether I’m treating someone in the clinic, teaching a class, or writing a book, I’m still guided by the same question that first drew me to this work more than thirty years ago.

How can I help this person become the healthiest version of themselves?

It’s a question I’ll probably never answer completely.

And perhaps that’s why I still find this work as fascinating today as I did when I first began.

 

Professional Registration

• Registered Chinese Medicine Practitioner (Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine) with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
• Member, Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association (AACMA)
• Member, Australian Natural Therapists Association (ANTA)
• Member, Shiatsu Association of Australia